How to sell an ecommerce or Amazon business: what it's worth, seller fees and due diligence (2026)

The short answer

You sell a small ecommerce or Amazon FBA business by pricing it as a multiple of its annual profit, listing it on a marketplace or with a broker that takes deals your size, getting through the buyer's due diligence, and closing through escrow. Most small deals are asset sales: the buyer takes the brand, stock, store, supplier relationships and know-how, not your company.

What it's worth comes down to one number and one multiple. The number is usually seller's discretionary earnings (SDE): net profit with your own pay, personal expenses and one-off costs added back. Flippa's 2026 ecommerce guide gives the same SDE formula. The multiple is set by risk, growth and how easily the business moves to a new owner.

This guide uses one unit for every multiple: times annual profit. Where a source quotes a multiple of monthly profit, we divide by 12 and say so. That matters, because brokers quote both, often without saying which.

What an ecommerce business is worth in 2026

Here are the published figures from marketplaces' own pages, checked on 28 October 2026, converted to annual multiples.

Flippa's ecommerce figures apply to Amazon FBA and Shopify stores too. Its FBA guide and Shopify guide both say those businesses sit in its ecommerce category and quote the same 1.55x and 2.75x.

A worked example

Say your store makes US$10,000 a month in SDE, so US$120,000 a year.

• At Flippa's 2026 average of 1.55x: about US$186,000.
• At Flippa's 2026 top quartile of 2.75x: US$330,000.
• Across Empire Flippers' 1.7x to 5x+ range: US$204,000 to US$600,000 or more.

Empire Flippers adds that where a business holds assets such as stock, it adds their wholesale or discounted value on top of the multiple. So agree early whether inventory is inside the price or on top of it.

Watch the units: brokers mix monthly and annual multiples

A quote like "35x" is a multiple of monthly profit. Divided by 12, it's about 2.9x annual. Mixing the two makes a weak offer look strong, or a fair one look insulting.

The sources above show how easy it is to get wrong:

• Flippa's 2025 guide quotes 30x to 45x monthly profit, or 2.5x to 3.75x annual. The middle of that band, about 3.1x annual, sits above the 2.75x that Flippa's own 2026 data gives for the top quarter of ecommerce sales.
• The same guide's written rule says to multiply a monthly multiple by 12 to get the annual one, but its own numbers (30x monthly becoming 2.5x annual) only work if you divide by 12.
• Flippa's October 2026 FBA guide says top-quartile ecommerce businesses reached 2.75x in H1 2026, then shows a table where the H1 2026 top-decile multiple is 2.23x, down from 2.78x in H1 2025. A top tenth can't sit below a top quarter, so at least one label is off. Its ecommerce guide's history table also gives the H1 2026 average as 1.54x against 1.55x in its text.

None of this means the data is useless. It means you should ask every broker three questions: monthly or annual, which profit measure, and over which months.

What moves your multiple

Flippa's 2026 ecommerce guide says ecommerce multiples sit lower than other categories because of higher operating costs, cash tied up in inventory and less predictable revenue than subscription businesses. It points to four things that lift the price: documented operations, proof of repeat revenue (repeat purchase rate, customer lifetime value, email list), how buyers see your exposure to AI, and how easily each sales channel transfers.

Seller fees: Empire Flippers vs Flippa vs Acquire.com vs FE International

All fees below are seller fees from each company's own pricing page, checked on 28 October 2026, in US dollars.

Flippa's self-service packages under US$100,000 run from US$29 to US$699, mostly per six months, and an NDA add-on costs US$199 on the cheaper packages. From US$100,000 its pricing page shows the broker-led option, with a single upfront payment for a six-month term. Its FAQ says success fees start from 5%.

What that means in dollars

The Empire Flippers figure at US$1.2 million is blended: 15% of the first US$700,000 plus 8% of the remaining US$500,000. Its flat US$10,000 fee is about 17% of a US$60,000 sale.

Fees aren't the whole story. Empire Flippers negotiates for you, handles buyer communications and offers migration once payment is received. A lower-fee self-serve marketplace leaves the negotiation and handover to you. Escrow and legal costs come on top on every platform.

We also tried to check Quiet Light's ecommerce multiples and fees, but its site blocked our check on 28 October 2026, so it isn't in these tables.

What buyers check in due diligence

Due diligence is where the buyer checks that everything you've claimed is true. Empire Flippers says it vets every listing but each buyer is responsible for their own due diligence, so expect detailed questions even on a vetted marketplace.

Your financials

• Monthly revenue and profit. Empire Flippers asks for screenshots of monthly gross revenue and net profit and verified monthly expenses, including cost of goods sold, contractors and advertising.
• Revenue that reconciles. Flippa tells sellers to reconcile revenue across Shopify, payment processors and accounting software, separate personal expenses from profit, and record inventory accurately.
• A data room. Acquire.com's seller guide lists financial statements and tax information, asset, customer and vendor lists, and legal documents and contracts, and says buyers want at least one year's P&L.
• Payment history. Flippa's Shopify guide says 12 months or more of Shopify Payments history without significant holds makes financial due diligence more straightforward.

For an Amazon FBA business

Flippa's 2026 FBA guide lists what buyers look at:

• Account health: no serious policy violations, unresolved IP complaints, listing suspensions or past deactivation. You can share your Account Health Rating as evidence.
• Brand Registry and a registered trademark, which show you own the brand.
• Organic versus paid sales: share of sales from organic search against PPC, advertising spend, TACoS, ACoS, keyword rankings and Best Sellers Rank over time.
• SKU spread: how evenly profit is spread across products, and whether that mix is stable.

Owner dependence and documentation

Flippa says buyers want the business to be fully transferable and owner-independent. That means SOPs, supplier information, fulfilment procedures, marketing processes and reporting that someone else can follow, and moving supplier or customer relationships that depend on you personally. If you use a 3PL, have the contract and its terms ready; our guide to choosing a 3PL covers the fees and the questions to ask.

Asset sale or share sale

In an asset sale the buyer buys the brand, store, stock, listings, domain and contracts. In a share sale they buy the company that owns them. Most small marketplace deals are asset sales: Acquire.com has you sign an asset purchase agreement (APA) after due diligence, as an individual or a company, and then close through Escrow.com.

The structure changes the tax. Two official examples:

• United States. The IRS says the sale of a business is usually treated as a sale of each asset, not one asset. Gain on inventory is ordinary income, and both buyer and seller must use the residual method to allocate the price across the assets, goodwill included. Selling shares in a corporation usually gives a capital gain or loss.
• United Kingdom. GOV.UK says sole traders and partners pay Capital Gains Tax on business assets such as trademarks and the business's reputation, while limited companies pay Corporation Tax on profits from selling assets.

For an Amazon business, settle how the listings, Brand Registry and FBA stock will move before you sign, since Flippa says seller accounts generally don't transfer with a change of ownership. Raise the structure in the letter of intent, not at the end.

Tax if you live abroad

Where you're tax resident, where your company is, and where the assets sit all affect the tax on a sale. This guide can't tell you what you'll owe; these official pages are the place to start:

• US company or US-source income: the IRS page on taxation of nonresident aliens explains how income connected with a US trade or business is taxed, and the IRS sale of a business page covers asset allocation.
• UK: GOV.UK's Capital Gains Tax guide says non-residents don't usually pay it on UK assets other than land and property, such as shares in UK companies, unless they return to the UK within five years of leaving or the company is "UK property rich".
• Anywhere else, including Australia: check your home tax authority's rules for foreign residents and for leaving the country, and read our guide to tax residency for remote founders.

If you sell on Amazon from outside the US, our guide to selling on Amazon as a non-US resident covers the US tax forms that usually sit behind the account. Get advice from a qualified adviser in each country involved before you sign anything.

Your checklist for selling an ecommerce business

1. Pull 12 to 24 months of monthly P&L and reconcile it to bank statements, Amazon and Shopify payouts.
2. Calculate SDE, and write down the evidence for every add-back.
3. Convert every quote you get into an annual multiple of the same profit measure.
4. Count your inventory and agree whether it's inside the price or on top.
5. Check your Amazon account health, Brand Registry and trademark.
6. Measure organic versus paid sales and your top SKU's share of profit.
7. Write SOPs for sourcing, fulfilment, ads and customer service.
8. Compare seller fees at your expected price, not the headline rate.
9. Agree asset or share sale, and how listings and stock move, in the letter of intent.
10. Get tax advice in every country involved before you sign the purchase agreement.
11. Close through escrow and transfer assets only once funds are verified.

If you're weighing an exit and want other founders to talk it through with, join Remote Builders: it's free, you're in straight away, and builder dinners run in Bali and Australia. If you've already sold an online store, you can suggest yourself as a guest on the podcast.